“(T)he library’s purpose is now in question. Is it just a study hall where students gather to work? A high-tech teaching space? Or merely the physical infrastructure for housing various campus functions, like coffee shops, advising centres or even an honours college?”
This observation by a history professor highlights a lack of clarity about the identity of today’s academic libraries.
Such uncertainty is relatively recent. Just a few decades ago, the stacks of printed volumes dominating the library’s buildings projected its clear-cut identity as the indispensable conduit to scholarly information, epitomised by metaphors such as “academic temple” or “scholars’ playground”. The transition to digital information changed everything, upending the library’s monopoly of access to published scholarship.
A more diverse but less clear identity
In response, libraries have diversified their offering, framing their value as partners, publishers, stewards of research data, proponents of digital literacy and enablers of student success and employability. Their buildings play host to other campus providers. Technology has displaced books. And their learning spaces are now more conversational, but sometimes harder to distinguish from other places on campus.
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University leaders, academics, students and even library staff are less sure about what the library represents and the range of metaphors encompassing it has expanded to over 25 in one listing. The library’s functions now overlap with those of other departments, and it may be grouped with professional services rather than with academic units. All of this contributes to a blurring of the library’s scholarly identity.
Is identity blurring a problem?
A clear identity matters for libraries. It explains what the library is, what it does and why, as well as who can benefit from what it provides. Crucially, it makes it as easy as possible for everyone to understand its offering and its value.
Without that clarity, institutional leaders, decision-makers and other stakeholders can overlook the library. Students and academics may turn elsewhere, the library suffers from lower visibility and less recognition, its contributions are underestimated, it loses its competitiveness in the fight for resourcing and it struggles to advance its position within the institution.
Perceptions are important, and library staff should take as much control of their institutional identity as possible. Writing a book about the strategic positioning of academic libraries gave me some insight into strategies they can use to counter the risks of identity blurring, especially by making the most of their distinctive features.
1. Emphasise core points of distinctiveness
This strategy overarches the others. Libraries can capitalise in what they do and say on several of the ways that distinguish them from other parts of a university, including:
- lived values, which inspire respect and support
- criticality to scholarship across all disciplines
- unique archives and heritage collections
- cultivation of campus community and belonging
- longevity
- trusted status.
The first four feature in other strategies below, but longevity and trusted status really set libraries apart. They have been an established, expected and readily identifiable campus presence since the early days of universities, enjoying the benefits of operating first in their area of influence and building a strong association with it in the minds of their communities.
Trust is a vital commodity, and it’s been retained by libraries at a time when universities are experiencing their own authority dwindling, and when disinformation, misinformation and fake news obscure truth.
2. Promote library values
The values of libraries are a key part of their identity, and an underused resource. One listing summarises them as “intellectual freedom, intellectual property rights and values, user privacy and confidentiality, collaboration and user-centred service”. They resonate well with library constituencies, translating into support for academic integrity, objective truth, social justice and open scholarship.
These values define the library as a committed campus citizen, a generous collaborator and “the quintessence of our collegiality”, earning it respect and adding to its authority. Highlighting these enduringly relevant values in terms of what they mean for their institutions, and their positive association with the library’s identity, makes good sense.
3. Foreground the scholarly connection
Scholarship is central to the academic mission, and libraries’ association with it remains intertwined with their identity in the digital era. This is even more true now, as their scholarly role enables the creation and publishing of new knowledge, adding to traditional functions of access and preservation.
We can see this in the contemplation and conversation the library hosts, and how it facilitates collective academic enterprise. It’s also visible in the role of information literacy in forming knowledgeable communities, empowered to navigate the complex problems facing us today.
Spanning teaching and research across all disciplines, the library’s scholarly connection is a crucial point of distinction, particularly from other units focused on administration and compliance.
4. Advertise centrality to whole campus
Libraries have a natural advantage, thanks to their established presence in university history: campus centrality. It’s not only an important part of library identity, it benefits institutions, too. Libraries provide a place of community on campus, functioning as both an egalitarian space, open to all disciplines, and a third place embodying the sense of belonging all universities aim for.
The library as “heart of the university” is a common metaphor and a positive element in its identity. It’s an interdisciplinary hub and connector, collaborator, facilitator and guide, well placed socially as well as physically, to bring people together for mutual benefit.
5. Shape stakeholder perceptions
Of course, underpinning all of this is effective communication. It shapes the perceptions of stakeholders, ensuring that the library’s identity is clear, distinctive and well understood. The unique qualities of the library should mean that it carries the authority, conferred by longevity and trusted status, to advance the institution’s scholarly mission from its position of physical and social centrality.
In a bustling campus environment, confidently projecting these qualities is an ongoing endeavour. Using active language, focused on the needs and interests of its communities, to assert the specifics of the library’s contribution, and the difference it makes, can work well, for example: promoting scholarly information discovery, generation and publication.
Cultivating a clear and well understood identity is worthwhile. It can help the library stand out from the crowd and advance its position and prospects, with positive impact on recognition, uptake and resourcing.
John Cox retired as university librarian at the University of Galway in late 2023 and now writes about and analyses academic libraries. He is author of The Strategic Positioning of Academic Libraries: Global Challenges, Local Politics and Strategy Development (Facet Publishing, 2026).
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